United States presidential election, 1840

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The United States presidential election of 1840 saw President Martin Van Buren fight for re-election against an economic depression and a Whig Party unified for the first time behind war hero William Henry Harrison. Rallying under the slogan “Tippecanoe and Tyler, too,” the Whigs easily defeated Van Buren.

This election was unique in that electors cast votes for four men who had been or would become President of the United States: current President Martin Van Buren; President-elect William Henry Harrison; Vice-President-elect John Tyler, who would succeed Harrison upon his death; and James Polk, who received one electoral vote for Vice President.

Contents 1 Nominations 1.1 Democratic Party nomination 1.2 Whig Party nomination 2 General election 2.1 Campaign 2.2 Results 3 Consequences 4 Campaign songs/slogans 4.1 Harrison 4.2 Van Buren 5 Electoral college selection 6 See also 7 References 8 External links 9 Navigation

[edit] Nominations

[edit] Democratic Party nomination

Van Buren, the incumbent, was renominated in Baltimore in May 1840. The party refused to renominate his sitting Vice-President, Richard Mentor Johnson. In the electoral college, the Democratic vice presidential votes were divided between Johnson, Littleton W. Tazewell, and James Knox Polk.

[edit] Whig Party nomination

For the first time in their history, the Whigs held a national convention to determine their presidential candidate. It opened in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on December 4, 1839, almost a full year before the general election. The three leading candidates were William Henry Harrison, a war hero and the most successful of Van Buren's opponents in the 1836 election; Winfield Scott, another general, active in skirmishes with the British in 1837 and 1838; and Henry Clay, the Whigs' congressional leader and former Speaker of the House.

Clay led on the first ballot, but circumstances conspired to deny him the nomination. First of all, the convention came on the heels of a string of Whig electoral losses. Harrison had managed to distance himself from the losses, but Clay, as the party's philosophical leader, could not. Had the convention been held in the spring, when the economic downturn had led to a string of Whig victories, Clay would have had much greater support. Secondly, the convention rules had been drawn up so that whoever won the majority of delegates from a given state would win all the votes from that state; this worked against Clay because he had almost the whole of Southern delegations, which meant that he didn't capture many votes from his opponents in the South, while he had large minority support in Northern delegations, which meant that his opponents poached many delegates from him in the North. Finally, several Southern states which supported Clay had abstained from sending delegates to the convention. As a result, the nomination went to Harrison.

The state by state roll call was printed in the newspaper the Farmer's Cabinet on 12/13/1839:

Presidential vote

ballot	1	2	3	4	5
William H. Harrison OH	94	94	91	91	148
Henry Clay KY	103	103	95	95	90
Winfield Scott NJ	57	57	68	68	16

Because Harrison was considered a Northerner, the Whigs needed to balance the ticket with a Southerner. They also sought a Clay supporter to help unite the party. After being turned down by several Southern Clay supporters, the convention finally found a Southern nominee who had faithfully supported Clay throughout the convention and who would agree to run: former Senator John Tyler of Virginia.

[edit] General election

[edit] Campaign

In the wake of the Panic of 1837, Van Buren was widely unpopular, and Harrison, following Andrew Jackson's strategy, ran as a war hero and man of the people while presenting Van Buren as a wealthy snob living in luxury at the public expense. Although Harrison was comfortably wealthy and well educated, his “log cabin” image caught fire, sweeping all sections of the country.

Harrison avoided campaigning on the issues, with his Whig Party a broad coalition with few common ideals.

[edit] Results

Although his popular vote margin was only about 6 points, Harrison's electoral victory was overwhelming, carrying North, West, and South.

Presidential Candidate	Party	Home State	Popular Vote(a)		Electoral Vote	Running Mate	Running Mate's Home State	Running Mate's Electoral Vote
			Count	Percentage
William Henry Harrison	Whig	Ohio	1,275,390	52.9%	234	John Tyler	Virginia	234
Martin Van Buren	Democratic	New York	1,128,854	46.8%	60	Richard Mentor Johnson	Kentucky	48
						Littleton W. Tazewell	Virginia	11
						James Knox Polk	Tennessee	1
James G. Birney	Liberty	New York	6,797	0.3%	0	Thomas Earle	Pennsylvania	0
Other			767	0.0%	0	Other		0
Total			2,411,808	100.0%	294	Total		294
Needed to win					148	Needed to win		148

Source (Popular Vote): Leip, David. 1840 Presidential Election Results. Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections (July 27, 2005).

Source (Electoral Vote): Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996. Official website of the National Archives. (July 31, 2005).

^(a) The popular vote figures exclude South Carolina where the Electors were chosen by the state legislature rather than by popular vote.

[edit] Consequences

Harrison, the oldest President second to Ronald Reagan, died little more than a month after his inauguration. The choice of Tyler for Vice President proved to be disastrous for the Whigs: while Tyler had been a staunch supporter of Clay at the convention, he was a former Democrat and a passionate supporter of states' rights who blocked the Whigs' political program in office.

[edit] Campaign songs/slogans

[edit] Harrison

"Tippecanoe and Tyler too"

[edit] Van Buren

Rockabye, baby, Daddy's a Whig When he comes home, hard cider he'll swig When he has swug He'll fall in a stu And down will come Tyler and Tippecanoe.

Rockabye, baby, when you awake You will discover Tip is a fake. Far from the battle, war cry and drum He sits in his cabin a'drinking bad rum.

Rockabye, baby, never you cry You need not fear OF Tip and his Ty. What they would ruin, Van Buren will fix. Van's a magician, they are but tricks.

[edit] Electoral college selection

Method of choosing Electors	State(s)
each Elector appointed by state legislature	South Carolina
each Elector chosen by voters statewide	(all other states)

[edit] See also

• Second Party System
• History of the United States (1789-1849)

[edit] References

Books

• (1971) in Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr., (ed.): History of American Presidential Elections, 1789–1968, 4 volumes. 
• Gunderson, Robert Gray (1957). The Log-Cabin Campaign. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press. 
• Greeley, Horace (1868). Recollections of a Busy Life. 
  • Greeley's description of the 1840 election is posted on Wikisource.
• Holt, Michael F. (1999). The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-505544-6. 

[edit] External links

• Overview of Whig National Convention of 1839. Our Campaigns.com.

[edit] Navigation

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